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Asahi Shougakusei Newspaper（朝日小学生新聞）article

Mari Nakamura and I were interviewed for the Asashi Shogakusei Newspaper and a full-page article featuring Lily and the Moon appeared in the 17th October 2013 edition.
Thank you so much Eunice Miyashita-sensei from SEG for organizing, translating and editing the article.

フェースofワンダー絵本コラボレーション Face of Wonder picture book project

障害を持っているフェースofワンダー仲間たちの素晴らしい絵を使って、絵本を作るプロジェクトの一冊目はもうそろそろ出来上がります。The first picture book using the fantastic art produced in the Face of Wonder art workshops for people with disabilities and their friends will soon be complete.

この絵本つくりはグループコラボレーションで、最初に私が英文で書いた「小さな緑カエル」は日本語になって、みんなの考えを何回も話し合って、テキストを変更して、一緒に各ページのアートを選択しました。フェースofワンダー仲間たちのアートはとてもとても想像力豊かの絵ですので、ストーリーも自然に想像世界に入り込みました。This picture book has been made by a group of us who have met regularly over the past year. I wrote "The Little Green Frog" and we all discussed the story, translated it into Japanese, adapted it and spent a lot of time selecting the artwork for each page. The pictures produced by the members of the Face of Wonder workshops are so expressively creative that the story naturally developed an imaginative depth.

結局タイトルは「ぼくのほし」になりました。Finally we changed the title to "A Star of My Own."

少し長くて、哲学的な考えも入っていますので、このストーリーは小学高学年より大人まで向きです。The story is a quite long and includes some philosophical elements and is suitable for anyone from the age of around 10 to adult.

This is the provisional cover:

また日本語を英語にしてから、絵本は日本語版、英語版、今年中電子絵本として発売します。

I am going to translate the final back into English and the picture book will be available in both Japanese and English as an e-book later this year or early next year.

What kinds of skills in English do Japanese high school students need? （日本語訳もついています。）

As I watch the cherry blossoms fluttering in the wind I reflect on my work as a part-time Assistant English teacher at two Tokyo Metropolitan high schools...

It is the time for transition and renewal once again!

The school year has ended, graduation ceremonies finished and now it is time for me to prepare my lessons for the 600 or so new first-grade high school students I teach communicative English to.

So, what do high school students need in the way of English education from me?Well, they have enough grammar and translation lessons in their other English lessons so I try and bring a little creativity to the classroom.I tell the students in my first lesson the four most important skills I want them to learn in my lessons.

1. Make mistakesLanguage can only be learned by using it. Using language means constantly making mistakes. By constantly making mistakes we gradually improve.

2. React and respond quicklyIn the real world very rarely will somebody wait 5 minutes for you to think of your answer. Say something and say it quickly. Keep the conversation going. Like a ball game, catch the conversation ball, keep the ball, pass it, shoot! Nobody will let you stand there just holding the ball for 5 minutes!

3. Know how to give your opinion and make your own presentationsIn the present world it is absolutely essential to know your own opinion and to be able to articulate and present it in front of a group of people. This skill may be the one that students will need most in their working life. So half of the year I spend at the front of the classroom (or walking around the classroom) and the rest of the year students are up at the front giving presentations.

4. Use imagination and creativityEnjoy using language as a tool to convey your essence! Create your own dialogues, stories and talks. Rote learning is fine to learn structures but the real joy of language is using what you have learned to create your own conversations and stories.

My dear friend, the highly respected teacher and teacher trainer, Mari Nakamura, summarized the points that I made here on her blog.

New Picture Book coming out in May! 新しい絵本５月発売！

During this past year I have been working on a new picture book that I illustrated using my own hand-made washi. The story is called "Lily and the Moon" and I wrote it together with Mari Nakamura.The book will be released in May but this is a link to a preview promo-video made by the publisher and producer, ELF Learning.

I am participating in a collaborative picture book project using the amazing art created in the Face of Wonder art workshops run by Kaneko Mitsushi-sensei.I have written a draft story about a frog in search of his mother and father and the strange encounters the frog has. The picture above shows the first creature the little frog meets - a cow with an insect head...

"I am a cow but I used to be an insect."“Oh, I see. How did that happen?” the little green frog asks.“We are all connected, you see,” the cow with the insect head replies.“We are all made from stardust and we grow and change like the stars.”

“You seem to know a lot, Mrs. Insect Cow,”

“I see what I see. I say what I say. And what I hear I keep to myself until the time is right.”

Mountain Mama Vintage Goods Shop at Lake Yamanaka

The other day I went to visit my friend's Teri’s vintage goods shop next to LakeYamanaka.

She recently moved to new premises so it was a bit of a celebration. I went to see the place she was moving to before she had it remodeｌled.I was amazed at what she had achieved - she had transformed a little run-down ice-cream booth into a cute American-style mountain log cabin! The shop is full of unusual and interesting clothes, good- as-new brand goods, accessories, bags and other things. If you get the chance tovisit Lake Yamanaka (it's a really cool place in summer) please drop by at Mountain Mama Vintage Clothes and Sundries shop which is a few hundred meters from the entrance to Lake Yamanaka on the road next to the lake (going towards Gotemba.) It is next to the Sea Horse restaurant.

Hayabusa's Story はやぶさのものがたり

Recently I had the great pleasure of translating the story of the space probe, Hayabusa, from Japanese into English.

この物語を翻訳すろことはとても楽しかったです。

Hayabusa was developed and sent into space by JAXA (the Japan Aerospace Exploration Agency) in 2003 to collect samples from the asteroid, Itokawa. Hayabusa experienced many technical problems but did actually land on Itokawa. After that it experienced many other problems and contact with the space probe was lost for a while. But the news of the Hayabusa space capsule miraculously returning to earth seven years later in June 2010 and that the capsule actually contained some tiny samples from the asteroid was rather awe-inspiring.

The story is aimed at children and is in the form of a picture book. The original Japanese version is in hardback and you can see more about it here (in Japanese only):日本語のオリジナルはここですhttp://www.cosmopier.com/shoseki/ehon_04.html

Documentary film "Bokutachi wa Mita"

Last year I had the opportunity to translate and edit the English sub-titles for a documentary film made by the director, Mizue Furui.

Today (6th August) the Japanese sub-titled version of the film opened in Eurospace 2 cinema, Shibuya, so I went along for the first public show. The film is called "Bokutachi wa Mita" and is about the traumatic effect of the attack by the Israeli army on a small village in Gaza at the end of 2008. The film focuses on four children in particular and is very moving. It shows these young children trying to come to terms with the violent deaths of their parents and siblings and total destruction of their village. The film is made from a very personal perspective by showing the situation through the eyes of children and does not directly address the political issues involved in the conflict that we usually hear about in the news.

The film will be showing for 3 weeks and during the first week there are talk shows with guests involved in documentary film production in Japan after the film.Today's talk show featured Mizue Furui and Tatsuya Mori and what they said about the challenges involved in making documentary films was extremely interesting. They also talked about their recent visits to Fukushima to film after the earthquake and nuclear catastrophe and the experiences that they had there.

Please go and see "Bokutachi wa Mita" if you get the chance.

Information about the film showing at Eurospace and the talk events can be seen on this link (sorry, in Japanese only!)

Why I haven't written on my blog recently.

I have felt numb inside watching the images, reading the news every day, feeling the pain of the tragedy and catastrophe that is happening just a short distance away from Tokyo.

And to write anything on this blog about my life, my work or activities during this time just seemed so trivial, so self-absorbed, so insignificant, somehow.

It must be unbelievably painful for so many people in Miyagi, Fukushima and Iwate to try to come to terms with their sudden loss of family members and friends, houses, jobs and more. I can’t imagine what it must be like living in evacuation shelters, in cramped conditions, many still without electricity and running water.

And the nuclear disaster is extremely worrying. All of us are concerned about radiation in the food chain and that is going to be a long-term problem, the consequences of which nobody is really sure.

I really hope that Japan will gradually close down all of its nuclear power plants and fund the development of renewable energy resources instead.

I already felt this way long before the current crisis.

But despite the uncertainty I did not leave and am still here teaching, writing, translating and holding events.

I am trying to stay cheerful. Moping around certainly won’t help one little bit.

So I will start posting news about recent or upcoming projects or events again soon.